Search results

I'm going to try growing some Concord vines. I harvested about a tablespoon of seeds from several pounds of concord grapes that were grown locally. I dried them and they've been in cabinet storage for about 9 months. Does anyone know if Concord grape seeds need to be cold-stored (frozen) for...

Someone recently gave me 12 lbs of concord grapes. I decided to experiment, never having made grape wine before from raw fruit. I wanted to make a white, but decided squeezing the fruit out of the skins was too much work (note: after pre-processing, I think this is NOT the case!), so I just...

I made a port kit. It's a standard "ruby" port. I'm sure it'll be o.k. to good with some aging. But I prefer tawny to ruby ports. So, how do I make my ruby port into a tawny? Does it require special oak barrel aging? How does fortifying with brandy change the ruby vs tawny?

I am beginning to think perhaps water has more to do with off flavors in my meads and wines. But I've made excellent wine and really bad wine with the same water. How much influence on final flavor will water have? I have mildly hard water (well water) where I live, but it goes through...

I've made 3 batches of mead thus far. All fermentations went well, and I'm waiting (MONTHS AND MONTHS) for them to condition/age. My recipes tell me to give them a full 18 months in the bottle, but I'm terribly impatient. When I've stolen a taste at racking or bottling, they were 'sour'...

I juiced about 50 pounds of apples to produce 3+ full gallons of raw juice/cider. I racked it a couple of times while it was still just the pressed juice to get rid of a lot of sediment. It started to ferment on it's own, so I added about 2 crushed campden tablets to the carboy and let it sit...

I store my dry wine yeast (mostly Lavlin EC1118, K1V1116, 71B1122, Red Star Montrachet, etc.) in a refrigerator. Is that necessary? Is it damaging? Never had a problem until a current batch of apple wine. Tried to proof a package of K1V1116 - no reaction. Next night, a packet of 71b1122...

I have recipes that call for adding campden tablets to a fruit-and-water mixture and letting it sit for 72 hours before starting fermentation. I have other recipes that call for putting the must together right away and adding a campden tablet at first racking. What do you folks do and...

How many folks use an energizer (more minerals) than just a yeast nutrient for their musts? How about dead hulls like a Ghostex product? Worthwhile?

I do about equal amounts of wine with raw fruits and concentrates I buy from a supplier. I can control the size of the batch much more easily with raw fruits. Most concentrates are intended to make a specific volume (e.g., 5 gallons). My last concentrate batch was a Gamay. One 46-ounce can...

I have always used dry package yeast thus far, but am a couple of days away from starting my second wild black raspberry port and I have a package of Wyeast's liquid port wine yeast, which is for 5-6 gallons. Because it takes 4-5 hours of picking to get the 7-8 pounds of raspberries, I'm...

What's so special about port wine yeast for making port? Why isn't a standard yeast like Montrachet or 71B-1122 or whatever just as good? Something about the interaction with heavy doses of sugar?

All else being equal (assume two identical recipes, identical ingredients, identical fermentation temps, etc. etc. etc.), what kind of fermentation is better, one that proceeds slowly or one that "burns out" rapidly? Which would produce more ABV, which more residual sugar?

Picking up on a point made in the "local honey" thread recently. I've made just 3 meads so far, all with wild/local honey (supplementing with a few ounces or a pound or two of store-bought if I'm just shy of the requisite amount) but ALL the recipes I have instruct to boil the honey for 10-20...

Dumb question: if I'm making a 5-gallon recipe and using only one package (5-7 g)of dry yeast, I should be using only ONE unit (typically a teaspoon) of yeast nutrient, correct...not one tsp per gallon?

More port problems. Here's the chronology of this poorly performing kit. This is a "Selection" kit for 3 gallons of port. Started the must on May 23. Original gravity 1.133--exactly as supposed. Primary fermentation in carboy (versus open-top bucket) was hyperactive for 2 days because temps...

I've been making mead recipes from a book. Each recipe is for one gallon. Each recipe recommends one package of yeast. If I want to make 2 or 3 or 5 gallons, should I increase the yeast amount concomitantly? When I make regular wine, I still use only one packet. Would more yeast produce more...

September 2005 I brewed two, 2-gallon meads. One sweet, one dry. Both are aging in 1-gallon jugs in a 55-degree basement. Both have strange 'sediments'. One is a kind of crystallized, white flakes (flakes are large - about 1 mm or so diameter). The other 'sediment' is very fine, white 'powdery'...

Started a port kit. Primary fermentation in carboy proceeded normally until abnormally high indoor temps (80 degrees) caused fermentation to "burn itself out" (is that possible) in my opinion. Waited correct number of days (5-7) and took hydrometer readings. Not even close to level recipe...

I have been reading completely contradictory indications about what system to use for primary fermentation: closed or open or airlocked, which I'll consider intermediary for the purposes of this thread. More to the point, some directions I've read suggest that the wort or must requires oxygen...